[Apparently TDG suffered some weird malfunction, and somehow this blog post got lost. Well Fuck you GlaDOS! here it is again]

A day after being sentenced to 35 years in prison, Bradley Manning announced his decision to live the rest of his life as a woman. Henceforth he asks to now be addressed as Chelsea Manning.

Taking the issue of whether Manning's internal struggle to coming to terms with he/her sexuality, and what role this had in the decision to disclose secret documents through Wikileaks, the Fortean gamer in me detects some interesting Twilight Language here...

The name Chelsea reminds me of Chell, the female character in the videogame series Portal. In the games, Chell is trapped in a weird maze-like prison/laboratory —notice how she wears an orange jumpsuit, similar to the clothes of Guantanamo prisoners— while being at the mercy of GlaDOS, a power-crazed A.I.

It's hard not to see the sinister computer with the deceptively reassuring female voice, as a symbol of the current trending in digital surveilance —the likes of which whistleblowers like Manning have been warning us about.

When you imagine a world without boundaries,

A world free of secrets & the lies enforced by authorities,

A world where your thoughts can transcend the limits space & time,

and any other illusory border,

When you can even imagine transcending the boundaries of gender itself,